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7 Oct 2015

Robert Smith remixed Ride's Vapour Trail and it's perfect

In the documentary Beautiful Noise, Robert Smith of seminal gothic post-punk-come-off-kilter-pop band The Cure said that Vapour Trail by Ride has one of the 'greatest 15 second intros of all time', and as a homage to the band that he refused to play Wembley without the support of back in their infancy, Smith has remixed the seminal shoegaze gem to an impeccable standard.

I think maybe it's not incredibly drastic, the way that he's altered it; adding echo to Andy's initial vocals is the most immediate way that the 1990 song has changed, but most of the bare bones of the track are still in tact. And why tinker with perfection? If it works perfectly perfect, it doesn't need fixing.

But where Smith's ambiton in the production comes in is probably everyone's favourite part of the song; he's worked wonders on the elongated outro which characterises the track. Smith here seems to have changed the mixing on the guitars and brought the luscious strings into the mix a bit sooner. The result is thus; the completely euphoric outro sounds different, but equally beautiful here, and it's just something that is amazing to let wash over you.

Robert Smith might not have improved what is basically our blog theme song, but he's given us 5 minutes of beautiful audio that slots almost seamlessly into Ride's back catalogue, and something that is definitely refreshing to hear as someone that has heard Vapour Trail a thousand times before. I think it's so good that, even though IMHO he had a perfect song to begin with, people would be so justified in saying that it's an improvement. Kinda.

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Vapour Trail is an online music platform set up in 2014, run by Cal Cashin (@calcashin_). We like loud guitars, great characters, and beautiful music. Direct all questions to @vapourtrailblog or vapourtrailblog@gmail.com